MARK CUBAN: Here He Comes To Save the Day (better if you apply tune from Mighty Mouse)

Mark Cuban is taking matters into his own hands – offering his own stimulus package for entrepreneurs. 

Since now that I'm a card-carrying entrepreneur, I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

Here are some excerpts from his blog post, his rules, and some of my favorite comments. 

I briefly add my own thoughts 

at the end. (complete blog here)

EXCERPTS

"My first inclination is always to try to look 'for the next big thing.' " 

"I'm a big believer that entrepreneurs will lead us out of this mess. I just needed a way to help."

"You must post your business plan here on my blog where I expect other people can and will comment on it. I also expect that other people will steal the idea and use it elsewhere. That is the idea. Call this an open source funding environment."

"I will invest money in businesses presented here on this blog. No minimum, no maximum, but a very specific set of rules."

SOME OF THE RULES 

(to see all the rules click here): 

3. It MUST BE CASH FLOW BREAK EVEN within 60 days

4. It must be profitable within 90 days.

5. Funding will be on a monthly basis. If you dont make your numbers, the funding stops

12. In your business plan , make sure to specify how much equity I will receive or how I will get a return on my money.

SOME OF THE COMMENTS

"Concept is great but if I am going to start something with sweat equity and reach profitability within 60 days why do I need outside money? Perhaps I am being selfish…."

________________________________________

"Congratulations: You’ve just created the worst venture capital company in the world.

"The people that invested $500K in our startup and spent 8 years in R&D would quite literally shoot me if I pusued this funding arrangement. Lets see:

1. Give away your idea to the world
2. Sign a crappy disclosure/funding agreement
3. Sign away control"

_________________________________________

"I know that you said that you are “trying not to be a VC”, but frankly these “terms” are worse than any VC terms I’ve ever seen. They are unrealistic when it comes to creating real employment, they are more restrictive than necessary, and they just aren’t going to work.

"In short, I’m a fan of the Open Source model. But I think the way you’ve gone about open sourcing this particular concept is a bit off."

___________________________________________

"I am a 22 year old college student, a HUGE Mavs fan and I live here in Texas. I’m not going to lie, I don’t have a wonderful idea yet to start a company. Of course, other than starting a sports bar/restaurant in town which I think would be very profitable. How about you give this poor college kid, whose in debt, a skinny 6 foot 6 white male a chance to work for you! Literally doing anything, whether it be interning for a genius billionaire like yourself or simply working for the Mavs in Dallas or even the towel boy! Please give me a shot, I always dream of my big break!"

MY THOUGHTS

Mark Cuban is a genius!

He has single-handedly made all of us take a step back and simply think, dream, and take action. By dangling the possibility of money – he lit a fuse that re-ignited an explosion of thoughts and ideas – some that have probably been buried for years and years.

He gave some people the courage to say, "Maybe this is a good idea!"

Others might say, "I'm going to go for it!"

He forced people to pull out their "idea journals" or sketches of their wacky invention and say, "What if?"

Secondly, if a home run idea does happen to fall in his lap, he has laid out a no-lose situation for himself.

Finally, he has masterfully developed a platform to be a complete ass to anyone and everyone who is willing to take it. It must be gratifying as hell to have your "million-dollar idea" already in the bank. I never realized that automatically made you an expert on anything.

Last question: Aren't the Mavericks in the middle of a sub-par basketball season?

A NO-WIN ARGUMENT? I DISAGREE

I don’t talk about losing.

I don’t think about failing.

I’m totally aware that both of those outcomes are realistic possibilities from the moment each one of us rolls out of bed – but thoughts of winning and being successful tend to kick-start my morning with a little more gusto.

I’ve come to realize there are some people in the world who don’t think this way. 

They give themselves nifty little titles – “I’m just being a realist” – or apply quirky descriptions to their pending thought process – “Let me play devil’s advocate.”

I’ve never been one to focus on the negatives.

This scenario recently played out when I was discussing e-Partners in Giving with one of my buddies.

I shared with him the concept of our business model and told him how I took the leap of faith – quit my “real” job and put 100 percent of my effort into e-Partners. 

I told him: “It just seems like the people that really make it, put everything on the line and take a chance. They go for it!”

He quickly asked: “What about all the people that don’t make it?”

NOPE….STOP! 

I’M NOT LISTENING! (If you can picture me with my fingers in my ears, humming “Take Me Out the Ballgame” it really helps to drive this home.)

I know there are stories of people putting all their metaphorical chips on the table and losing everything, but I don’t want to think about those people. 

Let’s talk about the country music star who rolled into Nashville in their beat-up Toyota pick-up, $50 cash, their guitar, and a dream.

What about the former garbage man who turned a simple idea into a multi-million dollar, industry-changing corporation?

These are the stories that I want to hear!

I recently read an article in Entrepreneur magazine (“We Knew Them When”– May 2007). It told success stories of companies the magazine featured when they were just start-ups.

Entrepreneur referred to them as “big names” and “seriously successful.” 

These stories embody what I’ve been ranting about for the last 342 words. They are about winners! I thought I would share some snippets of the feature. (I think you’ll be familiar with some of these companies.)

Theknot.com
David Liu, 41


THEN: Founder Liu talked to us in 2000 about the challenges of finding office space to accommodate the explosion in his number of employees--from 28 to 200 in one year.

NOW: Today, TheKnot.com dominates the wedding website landscape, having just acquired WeddingChannel.com in September 2006. Crediting his New York City company's success to its talented staff, Liu is now looking to grow its $72.7 million in sales by entering two new markets: In 2005, the company launched TheNest.com for newlyweds, which branched out into a magazine last year; and a site for new parents is planned for the first half of 2007. "The identity of the company, even as we get larger, remains very entrepreneurial," says Liu. "We stuck with our business plan--we didn't waver."  

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Netflix
Reed Hastings, 46


THEN: Netflix's subscription service launched a couple of years before founder Hastings was profiled in Entrepreneur in 2002. The Los Gatos, California, company was just beginning what would be a phenomenal growth cycle.

NOW: Fast shipping, tons of choices and a powerful movie recommendation system have helped propel Netflix to the top of the DVD pile. In 2001, Netflix's sales were $76 million. In 2006, sales were $980 million. In 2001, it had 600,000 subscribers; today it has 6.3 million. In 2001, it offered 11,500 DVD titles; today it offers 70,000. After innovating in the DVD-by-mail market, Hastings now plans to "expand the business to deliver movies to whatever viewing device consumers want while increasing margin and profit." The company's newest service component, currently in rollout, will allow users to access movies over the internet.

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StubHub.com

Eric Baker and Jeff Fluhr, both 33


THEN: In 2004, we covered the online marketplace for secondary event tickets co-founded by Baker and Fluhr. In 2006, we spotlighted how Fluhr had taken the company to $200 million in sales.

NOW: Fluhr grew StubHub.com so successfully that eBay acquired the company for $307 million earlier this year. Baker branched out in 2005 to launch Viagogo.com, an online secondary ticket marketplace for Europe-based events. "It was amazing to see the tremendous growth," says Baker from his London locale. "StubHub has become a brand name, and secondary ticketing has become mainstream. The concept is not uniquely American, so there was a great opportunity to pioneer this industry in Europe." In 2004, we covered the online marketplace for secondary event tickets co-founded by Baker and Fluhr. In 2006, we spotlighted how Fluhr had taken the company to $200 million in sales.